Thing 20: Forget product – sell relationship

There have been several major phases in the history of music as a business. All of them have quite different models of monetisation. Welcome to the newest one.

While there are still transcribers and publishers of sheet music, they are no longer the dominant force in the music business they once were. Nor is performing in the Music Hall the career it once was.

Let’s look at some of the main ways in which people have made money from music over the years. All still exist in some form or another — but each has had its day. Every time a new technological development comes along, the ratio has been shuffled around in order to make room for the new player in town.

And every time it happens — the dominant force in the industry kicks up such a fuss…

Patronage
We think of Bach as having existed in the age of the dinosaurs, but honestly, it was just a few generations ago that the most revered musical talents of their day were dependent on the indulgence and enthusiasm of a rich benefactor. Usually these were members of royalty or nobility, and their patronage was hard to come by — but as keepers of culture, it was only right and proper that they selected and encouraged music by artists whose works glorified God — and their paymasters.

Live Performance
Of course, the patrons of the arts were horrified when music performance became a commodified entertainment for the masses, rather than an edifying or uplifting cultural health food for those worthy of culture. But musicians, and their new business associates, found they could do better when their pay came from the pockets of the many, rather than of the few. And entry to the profession was suddenly much more open.

Print Publishing
The birth of sheet music was, of course, the death of the music industry. If people could play the music themselves at home on their pianos, then who would attend concerts? Mass production of popular song changed the way that audiences engaged with and consumed music. It didn’t kill the concert hall, but it was certainly witness to its serious injuries.

Recording
Famous artists who had made names for themselves in the concert halls could enjoy renewed revenue with the birth of recording. Not only could you now have the music of the stars of stage and screen in your home… you could hear the stars themselves performing it. Magical. Sadly, the entire industry was more or less built on sheet music, and the “death of music business” happened again. Besides, recordings hurt the ongoing careers of working musicians.

Broadcast
With the birth of radio came the newest threat to the music business. If people could hear music at home without buying the recordings, then why on earth would they spend money on music any more? This latest development led to boycotts, lawsuits and charges of piracy. Of course, we now know that radio is the single strongest driver of music retail sales, and it also generates performance royalties, even absent a music hall.

Synchronisation
Getting played on radio was one thing — but having your song used in a film, a TV show, commercial or videogame is something else again. Suddenly one of the quickest and best ways to make money out of music was to associate your music with something that large numbers of people will see, rather than just listen to. And the interesting thing was that it was no longer the audience who was parting with cash.

So there’s this new technology…
Each time a new technological environment for music comes along, everything shifts. What was dominant recedes into the background. What was once lost is retrieved. And it never quite turns out the way you expect it to. When the music industry was doing its best to shut down radio stations and prevent them from distributing their music for free, who knew they were strangling their cash cow?

The best news for music business — and particularly for yours — is that the winners in this game are those who understand the new environment, and find a way to connect an audience with an artist. It really is as simple as that.

Relationship
Just as patronage is old fashioned, other aspects of the music industry become less significant as we move into the new media environment. The notion of giving money to someone in exchange for a piece of music that you can come home and listen to repeatedly is quite quickly going to be seen as passe.

While we will always want to sell an individual recording to an individual consumer in some kind of physical form, the writing is well and truly on the wall: this is no longer going to be the main way in which money is made from music.

In that respect, iTunes is still completely old school.

The new model is about starting an ongoing economic relationship with a community of enthusiasts. It’s about attention and repeat engagement. It’s about letting go of the idea of the individual transaction and the ‘lost sale’ of a pirate download. CDs and mp3s are increasingly souvenirs of an engagement with a musical experience, rather than the occasion for the experience itself.

It’s about a reshuffle of ratios. And these things are still shaking themselves out. The music industry has not changed — it is changing.

Naturally, we will see a change of ratios within those business models. Patronage has already made something of a comeback through online micropatronage.

Amateur performance and a demand for online music education (including sheet music) is growing rapidly.

CDs are dying out as the primary method of consumption of music.

We live in scary and uncertain times — but it’s exactly these sorts of times in which the bold and the innovative thrive. The major players, at times like these, either adapt — or they diminish. Slowly but surely.

But the truth is, whoever puts music into the ears of a willing public, whoever can leverage the new environment to add value and aid the music creators and performers in communicating their art, and whoever can stake their claim on the new territory and make it their own — they are the ones who will thrive and grow.

It’s about the conversation.
It’s about connectivity.
It’s about relationship.

It’s not a top-down, one-to-many distribution model. It’s not a customer off the street happening by and exchanging money for a product. This is about trust, recommendation and reputation. This is a many-to-many dialogue, and the money goes where the attention lies.

The digital age is profoundly different from everything that has come before it.

Do you get it yet? This is not a format shift. It’s not like moving from records to CDs.

This is like what happened when we moved from sheet music to recorded music. Only more so.

Start with that principle and move forward from there.

9 Comments

tomp
on May 16, 2007 at 9:19 am

*Applause*
A fitting end to a brilliant series.
thank you, look forward to the finished pdf book’
tomp

Very well done. I couldn’t agree more. In fact I wrote about this very thing yesterday, however you illustrated the point much better than I.

I deal with bands and artists all day, as I run a very small but growing music company. I’m still not sure what to call what we do as we are doing things that most aren’t. I guess you’d call us a label that actually cares about the artists. Our approach to distribution will be just like you described– it will be an experience rather than a “sale”.

very accurate vision of the ongoing music business.
As an artist, who’s trying hard to make it, the fact music is becoming unmaterial again like in the troubadour times is a great opportunity for us. Recording companies where the ones who told you if you were good or not as an artist. If they said you were not, you had to get back to your day-job and cry over your failure. Today the relationship you create with the audience counts much more. If at least one listener say you’re good, you just have to go further up your way and get to more listeners. Audience build your success, not major companies.
About songs and copyrights, we are coming to the real essence of music. From a philosophical point of view, as it is unmaterial and you can’t touch it with your fingers, the song belongs to the one who is performing it, not anymore to the one who wrote it.
Best regards,

Steffan Rock
an electric troubadour, writing, recording and performing his own stuff, also stealing and covering past stuff.

Thanks for sharing your excellent “20 Things” e-book — which I will promote on my music blog as an invaluable resource.

One quibble, though. You make a claim that attendance at live gigs has shot through the roof. It may be true in the U.K., but not in the United States. One of my contacts who manages a 2,000-seat hall tells me that venue managers across the nation are talking about how concert attendance has sharply dropped off. There are fewer performance opportunities now for musicians than there were just two years ago. Bands in the 1970s were paid more for the average gig than bands are paid today.

Remember what Dickens wrote in A Tale of Two Cities: “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times”? I think that aptly describes what the average musician faces these days. But at least we have you as a resource to help us navigate the waters.

Thank you! Thank you! Thank you for this remarkable e-book. Having just completed this final chapter, I am beginning to see the Light. I will be back to visit regularly. Now I have a lot of work to do.

Robin Avery
singer/songwriter, warm vocals, cool grooves and owner of a sad, abandoned website with useless 45 second clips that is about to receive undivided attention and quality time!http://www.robinavery.com

What I am concerned about is whether the new model of shifting towards relationships will not promote “the extraverted ones” that are inclined towards relationships. Conversely, the introverted, which would like more to speak music and performances rather than meet and talk with everyone, could suffer and possibly be forced to move to background…
What ya think?

I have very much enjoyed. Must though go back and read 1. I started at 2.

One minor gripe. This series is not found using search, not even if I use google. I had to trawl as I by mistake closed a tab.

The book available for free download is a good idea. May I suggest, if you have not done so already, that you put on FrostWire, as Paulo Coelho has done with The Way of the Bow, you will then reach a far wider audience.